One of my favorite first grade activity/projects is keeping a poetry journal. We add a new poem each week...either seasonal or phonics based using words that have the phonetic sound we're studying that week. They glue the poem in their journal, we read it several times...look for rhyming words, words with specific vowels that we're studying, nouns, verbs, adjectives....whatever I want to reinforce that week. Students illustrate the poem and take their journals home to read the poem to their parents.

I love that! We do a poem a week based on our science and social studies topics. I use it as our shared reading. We love the songs we find on YouTube. I type up the lyrics and they sing along. We reread for fluency when we put I. Our new poem of the week.

They love GoNoodle for brain breaks. And we "Fill Buckets" doing random acts of kindness for others in our school. First graders are so much fun!

Oh, at the end of each writing unit we share with our buddy kindergarten class. They feel so grown up, and the kindergarteners get to know what to expect in first.

Kisses from Home- February- send home an outline of a Hershy's Kiss and have relatives write nice notes to each student inside the outline. Send back to school- cut out notes and make a book- The cover of the book is an outline covered in tin-foil with a tag that has the student's name on it. Big hit and good keepsake.

Cover the Clover - St. Patrick's Day- send home a blank clover outline, they cover it anyway they wish (stickers, glitter glue, toothpicks, beads,etc.) present it to the class. Put into a class book to share throughout the year.

Friendship Journals - each student writes their name in bubble letters on a paper with lines below, you copy into journals (one page per name). This is their daily journal prompt. Students have to write several KIND sentences about each person, and get to decorate the name as well.
Do one name/page per day. On last day, take apart journals and kids pass out their own name pages to each other. So they have a full book of their own name pages. They can color/decorate the original cover page as desired. It's a big hit and good keepsake. I as the teacher write a page for each student as well.

Job Interview: When we come to the Community Helper section of our Reading Curr. I send home a job interview where students pick an adult in their family to interview. Ask questions of this person about their job, what they do, training, etc. They draw a picture or bring in actual pictures and give a quick report to the class. Put these into a class book to share throughout the year.

Acrostic Name Poems: Students write a poem with each line beginning with the first letter of their name and decorate. Present to the class. Display, then Place into a class book to share throughout the year.

I definitely want to do the Frienship Journals! We have to do a friendly letter writing unit so I think I'll combine the two. On the days leading up to Valentines Day, we could work on the letters and then on Vday we could pass out the letters, add a cover sheet and bind into a book.

We do a whole first grade (we had 4 classes) stations in the cafeteria for 100's day. The students are invited to dress like they think they will look like at 100 years old, and they wander around picking stations that interest them. We had stations like 100 pattern blocks, make a snack with 100 items, and hop around a 100's grid we taped to the floor. Parents help at stations, and it ran well. (I was worried, being my first year in first). It was a blast, and I'm sure could be done on a smaller scale as well.

for you about You Tube. What you mentioned about songs and poetry is my big project for the summer, finding songs that will help with learning, then type them up for my student's poetry folders. Do you happen to have a You Tube channel, playlist, or have any people you follow? I would love any advice or guidance you might have!

We got them from FOSS, but you can get them from some pet shops or a bait store. My son's lizard ate them. In the classroom, they are very easy to care for and kids love seeing the different stages of growth.

My end of the year BIG STEM project is the egg drop challenge! You can you tube it and see how it works if you aren't familiar with it but basically, it involves a pint of water in a glass covered by a tray, a cardboard tube and a raw egg on top of the tube. The challenge is to hit the tray in a way that enables the egg to drop into the glass of water.

I have done this for the past two years and the response is absolutely amazing! Students begin asking their own questions and exploring "what ifs" such has...what if you used paper instead of a tray? What if you tried this with two eggs? What if the tube was shorter? Of course, we spend time learning why the egg drops into the water and doesn't fly away with the tray...we talk a little about Newton's Laws and students are enthralled. I was worried that this was going to be too challenging for first graders but they loved the experiment and loved learning why it works each time. Each student had a chance to try the egg drop after I demonstrated it and we only had 2 broken eggs! I highly recommend it!

Each grade level does a project - first grade does animal habitats - shoe boxes decorated with objects and facts about an animal and it's habitat. Other grades do video book reports, community places - like the habitats but a community building with facts, student wax museums - students dress up like characters and tell facts and info about them. It is a fun night. We also have book fair going on that evening and a dinner with grade level basket raffles.